On Jun 28, 2007, at 5:46 AM, Peter P. wrote:

> An explosion occurs when the mixture goes off faster than the
> speed of sound in it (see deflagration and detonation on Wikipedia).

Right.  A "detonation" is the supersonic reaction, and a "deflagration"
is subsonic.  But "explosion" is an ambiguous non-technical term
generally used by the US BATFE to restrict access to "explosives"
that it doesn't like people to have.  See also "high explosive"
(detonates; eg dynamite) vs "low explosive" (doesn't detonate, eg
black powder.)

BillW

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